Georgetown University Archives /The Hoya Despite serving as Georgetown’s mascot from 1921 to 1926, Stubby also became the poster canine for dogs and animals serving alongside soldiers in combat, and was a precursor of the military K-9 Corp.

When Jack, only a few weeks old, arrived on the Hilltop this summer, his small paws already had large prints to follow. While he may never understand the tradition which he now embodies, most Georgetown students are equally as unaware of the history of Georgetown’s dogs.

As it turns out, Jack is just the latest installment in a long line of official Georgetown mascots that reaches back to the beginning of the 20th century, though the tradition of dogs at Georgetown dates back to the days of the Hilltoppers of the last century.

Jack is a purebred English Bulldog, and the legacy of this breed has been on campus since 1962. Before the English Bulldog was adopted as the official breed of the university’s mascots, Georgetown used several different breeds, including several terriers and a Great Dane. As a side note, Georgetown’s mascot was listed as “a small boy” in the 1911 yearbook.

One of Georgetown’s earliest mascots, Stubby, predates the newest Jack the Bulldog by more than 80 years. Stubby was a mixed-breed mongrel, at least part Boston terrier, whose story began in 1916 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Conn.

The Connecticut National Guard was training in the stadium while awaiting assignment to the front lines of World War I. Stubby wandered out onto the field and was quickly adopted by the men training for war. When the 102nd Infantry Regiment shipped out to Europe, the men smuggled Stubby with them.

During the Great War, Stubby served the regiment as both mascot and fellow soldier. In his 18 months on the front lines, Stubby located wounded soldiers and saved his regiment from a mustard gas attack by waking the troops in the middle of the night. He carried messages under fire. He even caught a German spy by sinking his teeth into the agent’s rear.

Stubby was wounded by shrapnel but recovered to join his regiment to fight at Chateau Thierry and the Marne. His efforts in the war made Stubby a popular hero, especially among French women, who fashioned a blanket of the flags of all the Allied Nations for the terrier. With each battle, Stubby’s blanket garnered more medals and honors, both French and American, while back home Stubby’s bravery earned him front-page headlines.

When Stubby returned to the United States after 17 hard-fought battles in over a year and a half of service, President Woodrow Wilson invited him to the White House where General John Pershing awarded the terrier a gold medal of valor. In later years, he was also received at the White House by Presidents Coolidge and Harding. The Connecticut military department called Stubby “the most famous and decorated war dog in U.S. history.” Stubby’s loyalty and bravery was so famous that almost 20 years later it provided the impetus for creating the K-9 corps during World War II.

In 1921, Stubby again returned to the nation’s capital, this time to Georgetown, where his owner, J. Robert Conroy, was attending law school.

Already a renowned war hero, Stubby quickly became a favorite of Georgetown sports fans in the early 1920s. Stubby would push the ball around the field with his nose during the halftime break at Georgetown football games. This trick became a standard part of the repertoire for Georgetown mascots throughout the ’20s and ’30s.

Stubby died in 1926. He was stuffed, and his remains – including his medal-adorned blanket – were displayed for 30 years at the National Red Cross Museum. In 1956, the dog’s body was presented to the Smithsonian. After 40 years in mothballs, the venerated war hero was loaned to the State of Connecticut, which recently featured the Georgetown mascot at a statewide dog show.

“If there is any place on the Other Side for dogs that are true, and loyal, and heroic,” wrote THE HOYA upon Stubby’s death in 1926, “Stubby is no doubt there, gamboling after gray-clad warriors with all his former gusto.”

Clarence Benjamin Jones, the speechwriter for Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, visited Georgetown on

DAN GANNON/THE HOYA
Panelists discussed the political future of Latin America at a student-organized conference in the HFSC on Friday.

CAROLINE KENNEALLY FOR THE HOYA
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (CAS ’57) delivered a guest lecture for 360 first-year law students in the Hart Auditorium at the Georgetown University Law Center’s McDonough Hall on Monday. He discussed his career, infamous dissents and originalist viewpoints.

ROBERT CORTES FOR THE HOYA
Graduate student goalkeeper Emma Newins played in her fourth consecutive NCAA tournament.

ROBERT CORTES FOR THE HOYA
Junior forward Grace Damaska scored the goal that tied the game and forced overtime in Georgetown’s loss to Hofstra in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

ELIZA MINEAUX FOR THE HOYA
Senior forward Brandon Allen was awarded the Big East tournament’s Most Outstanding Offensive Player honor following the Hoyas’ 2-1 victory over Creighton in the championship match.

ROBERT CORTES/THE HOYA
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a Democratic presidential candidate, addressed a Gaston Hall audience that could not accommodate all who started lining up before 6 a.m. Thursday.

STEPHANIE YUAN FOR THE HOYA
Scott Dikkers, founding editor and former editor-in-chief of The Onion, spoke to more than 300 students in the ICC Auditorium on Monday.

NAAZ MODAN/THE HOYA
The Mind-Body Medicine Program, which launched 13 years ago in the Georgetown University Medical Center, has expanded to undergraduates over the past few years, catering students in the School of Nursing and Health Studies and the School of Foreign Service who experience stress.

NAAZ MODAN/THE HOYA
All 95 Coca-Cola vending machines on the main campus and law center have been upgraded to be compatible with payments by credit card, Apple Pay or Google Wallet in addition to payments by cash and GoCard.